


"I believe you dropped this."

by Anonymous



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Love Confessions, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-18
Updated: 2017-06-18
Packaged: 2018-11-15 19:16:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11237469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Harry huffs out a laugh against Niall’s ear. Squeezes him even closer as he says, “What do youthinkI’m doing here? Wanted to see you before I go back to LA.”





	"I believe you dropped this."

**Author's Note:**

> (This is a MESS I'm so sorry.)

Niall hands his guitar over; his smile along with it in a parting gesture to all the eyes that are on him as he exits the stage. The presence of his band is comforting behind him, a wall to support him in the face of the curious faces that meet him backstage, in hallways that still feel familiar. There are photos on the walls – framed memories of when the world’s biggest stars have stopped by in the past. His own face is there, along with four others. His smile is wide and amazed at what the five of them were doing, of the ground that they were breaking.

A new hand is extended towards him; a new slip of paper to autograph and a waist to sling his arm around in kind agreement to be in another photo. A few contestants to sing-song good lucks to over his shoulder before he finally reaches his room, his solitude. A fortress for a little while, until responsibilities sharpen their claws and stab at him again.

There’s a knight slouched on his temporary sofa, wearing yoga pants and a matching, black sweater. His hair’s short, messy, disturbed by long fingers in countless runs through soft strands. Niall doesn’t have to see it to know that it’s true – doesn’t have to doubt his knowledge because he’s been saved before, by habits and kindness and everything else that Harry is armed with under soft fabrics and confidence. Armours of the unconventional kind. Something to be let into.

“Hi, pet,” Niall says. Instincts curling in hands and corners of a mouth that stretches at the very sight before him, the familiarity of it and how it warms him up from the inside.

Harry smiles at his phone – blinks slowly at it through a pink wave of happiness before he tilts his face up, grinning through a response of, “Hi, sunshine.”

Niall’s surprised. Can’t pretend that he isn’t now that the instinctive greeting is over. He closes the door behind himself. Strides right in and pulls Harry up and into a hug. Breathes warmly against the curve of Harry’s neck and shoulder and hums, “ _Fuck_ , I’ve missed you. What’re you doing here?”

Harry huffs out a laugh against Niall’s ear. Squeezes him even closer as he says, “What do you _think_ I’m doing here? Wanted to see you before I go back to LA.”

“When’s that?”

“Tomorrow evening,” is Harry’s reply. His voice is the same as it’s always been, deep and layered, offering comfort through its rise and fall over vowels. “Didn’t know if you’d have time for me, took a chance.”

“ _Chance_ ,” Niall repeats. Is careful with the pronunciation. Feels his entire body tremble at the sight of Harry cracking up at the unspoken joke; the recollection of what used to be. He doesn’t even hesitate before he draws Harry back in for another hug, for another lungful of cologne and male heat. A savouring of lines of muscles in the lines of his own grateful palms that reluctantly let go of that protective sweater.

“Brought food,” Harry offers. He’s sinking down on the sofa again, setting his phone with its screen down on the table in front of him and brushes the back of his hand against a paper bag beside it. “I know there’s catering, but I thought – I don’t know, it could be nice?”

“ _Please_ ,” Niall finds himself groaning, sinking down right beside Harry and knocking their knees together. “I’m starving.”

He’s already pulling the bag closer with the curl of a finger around one of the handles, scanning the bag for a restaurant name as he goes. He doesn’t expect Tupperware containers. Doesn’t expect Harry’s home cooked lasagne or the nostalgia that comes with its scent when he opens up the first box with frantic fingertips under an equally frantic gaze. There’s so much to focus on, so much to take in. Questions to ask that he can’t place upon his tongue, so he glances up at Harry’s face again, just to assure himself of the fact that this is all real. Harry, and the food. These gifts that he’s not sure his heart can afford in the long run.

“Boston,” he hears himself saying. Can remember the hard wood of a stool beneath him in a hotel kitchen at midnight – hair damp from an after-show shower. The two of them alone, trusted with appliances and space in yet another city that simply slept through their adventures.

Harry’s smiling at him, soft and blurred by the same memory. “You almost fell asleep. Had imprints of your nails on your cheek because you were leaning so heavily on it, on your elbow.”

“It was the _middle of the night_ ,” Niall defends. Revels in the heat of the box against his palm – in the fact that Harry must have warmed it somewhere in the building, thought of everything and come prepared with cutlery and beer. “And it took forever!”

“You liked it, though,” Harry defends. Remembers. Sounds like he’s clinging to it, a little, as though he’s trying not to doubt his choice to repeat the meal today, years and miles later.

Niall takes a fork. Brings the food closer, and takes a bite. Half of him is still left in their reverie, the rest is sinking into the explosion of flavours upon his tongue – shaken by the taste of it, the comfort it brings as he chews. “I still do.”

It makes Harry grin again, just like the pet name did before. Makes him busy himself with his own container and fork; with the process of fitting feet to the edge of the table and leaning back on the sofa, comfortable in the room, in the company and in himself.

Niall watches him; drinks in the combination of food and person and past – the absolute ease it brings to his flesh and bone while Harry’s contours become familiar in his line of sight once more. The hair is another memory – something older and well-worn in his mind and fingertips, because they used to feel those strands all the time. Used to card through curls and waves and lengths and got used to each style, eventually, but they’re not used to this denial, this withdrawal from something that is right there.

He curls his hand tighter around his fork. Tries not to inhale the food or the guy, the piece of him that’s been away. Asks, “So. How was Jamaica?”

“Great,” Harry grins. “I’ve said, right – that it was great? Like late-night cooking sessions in hotel kitchens, only longer, and without you. A lot of freedom. No restraints.”

“Yeah,” Niall breathes. Shakes all parts of himself into place again, just before some splinter off and away and grasp for other memories; “Seen some footage. White trunks. Surfboards. You looked happy.”

“I was,” Harry confesses. He’s blinking slowly again, oozing contemplation where he’s sunken into the back cushions. His fork is hovering, his expression’s thoughtful. “I always am, when I’m writing. You know that more than anyone, I think. And it felt good after the movie, to just… be. Without the attention. Without the schedules.”

He pauses. Niall does, too, in the aftermath of those words, those honest conclusions and the way he doesn’t keep them from Niall at all. It’s good to hear; good to see how it’s the same Harry that’s always been there, evolving without uprooting completely.

“Saw a seahorse,” Harry’s adding, then, licking sauce from his bottom lip. “Did you know that they hold tails, sometimes?”

Niall tilts his head. “A courtship ritual, right?”

It makes Harry look at him – zone back in properly again, with a smile slowly curling the corners of his mouth in the most private way. A private joke to light his whole face up as he shakes his head and mumbles, “Of course you know.”

Niall leans back next to him – stabs an elbow against Harry’s side and his fork into another bit of pasta. “I watch a lot of documentaries.”

“I know you do,” Harry murmurs. Leans his knee against Niall’s for another point of contact. “It was always a comforting thing to fall asleep to.”

Niall presses their knees to the side – makes them sway in the aftershock of that revelation while he shoves another forkful of food into his mouth just to keep his confessions at bay. Doesn’t think that Harry needs to know that it got harder to watch the documentaries when Harry was asleep right next to him, fascinating to watch where he drifted.

They’re silent for a while, still used to the dynamic, to the way it works in any situation. Niall’s swallowing down the last bits of his lasagne with a side dish of suppressed emotions, zoning in on the telly in the corner; the live feed of a studio a hallway away that is starting to fill up with people. Not a lot of time left for him, now. Not a lot of space left now that Harry’s taken it all up, physical and emotional.

He pushes the container to the table, then himself back to Harry’s side. Says, “I never look for you. I know you’re not there because it’s all so clear, what I’m doing – but I miss it, sometimes. Having someone to breathe with up there. Someone to talk to that truly understands, backstage like this. I love my music, love doing this, but—”

“ _Yeah_ ,” Harry interrupts. Doesn’t say more. Doesn’t have to. His voice is a soundtrack. Several years of Niall’s life conveyed in rasps and emotions. Niall misses it terribly when he doesn’t hear it. Has grown tired of the phantom noise of it that accompanies every email in the band’s chain of them.

Niall’s just about to open his mouth again, say something, _anything_ , when someone knocks on the door. A threat to his fortress, disturbing the peace with faraway obligations. He’s supposed to do an interview before the show starts, the enemy tells him when she’s been invited in. A kind woman who’s been helping him keep track of his schedule all day, now smiling apologetically at both men in the room as though it’s her fault that they don’t see each other often enough for Niall not to crack at the inevitable goodbyes.

He lets her know that he’ll be a minute; starts stressing over irrelevant things because it’s easier than dealing with the problem.

“My phone,” he’s saying, patting himself down because he’s on his feet, now, making a mess of the room and the items he’s spread in it. “I need my phone, and – and you’re leaving tomorrow evening. Have you got time? Can you stay, until I’m done here?”

There, dealt with in the haste, in the storm of getting himself organized that can cover up any potential hurt, though Harry simply brushes the winds of his desperation away with a simple hum of, “ _Niall_.”

He has the lid of a thermos in his hand when Niall turns around; is standing near the door with it held out in an invitation below a gentle smile, and says, “Your phone’s still in your pocket.”

Niall finds it in the back pocket of his jeans. Exhales until his insides don’t feel so ready to burst with everything he’s feeling – everything that was dragged up so suddenly, moved about and left disturbed where it had previously been left alone.

“It is. You made – tea?”

Harry shakes his head. “Just warm water with ginger, the way you like it.”

Niall steps in to take it – takes a whole lot more because suddenly he’s right there, inches away and caught up in a play of domestic illusions that has him leaning in and placing a kiss of gratitude upon Harry’s lips. An afterthought. Second nature. Something that doesn’t hit him until he’s pulling away, and that subsequently pulls his expression all kinds of way, all of them in horror.

Harry’s blinking himself out of the moment, quicker than usual where his eyelashes disturb the air. It takes a moment before the blank state of his face turns into something else – a collection of emotions carefully distributed in a soft smile.

He’s lifting his hand, now, still warm from the cup that he handed over when he curls his index finger under Niall’s chin, applying the slightest bit of pressure to tilt it upwards and say, “I believe you dropped this.”

Niall’s mouth closes – his lips rubbing together to speak of what they just felt, of the warmth that still lingers there, too, only better than warm water with ginger and a thousand times sweeter.

He’s the one who’s blinking slowly, now, he can tell. Can feel himself trying to understand what just happened so that he can say something about it, but fails. Stumbles over a hitched breath. Watches Harry shake his head in the most wistful of ways before he tells Niall, “You’re late. _Go_. I have time – I can stay.”

*

It’s past midnight. It’s London. It’s his own kitchen, this time, and Niall’s not tired, not falling asleep, not anything but full of emotions. He has his own song stuck in his head, his own voice blending with what Harry’s saying over slices of toast upon Niall’s stove. What he wants, what he’s been thinking about, it’s all there. _Here_. Right in front of him and manifested in years spent together, creating a home in the other’s presence.

He’s got beer in his system, and words on his tongue, and a frustration building in flexing fingers that don’t want to do anything but to pull Harry closer, away from late-night food and into something entirely new. Something they should have done all along.

“Harry,” he hears. His own voice, raw from performance and alcohol-induced conversation that started up when he finally got back to his fortress again, to his knight in black armour who pretended that nothing had happened, like Niall hadn’t slipped and bled his heart out in that room, and upon that stage, in lyrics and melody. “About the kiss –“

“It’s alright, Niall,” Harry interrupts. Talks to the cheese that’s melting upon their slices of bread. “I know you didn’t mean to.”

Niall’s head snaps up. His brows furrow. His entire body aches in disagreement.

“I did mean it,” he says. “Or not – maybe not – I didn’t mean _to_ – to actually do it, like that – but I meant _it_ , what I did.”

Harry’s looking up at him, now, but he’s quiet. Assessing. Has never doubted Niall like this, not ever. And that fact alone is making Niall move, making him push through the swaying space between them on round feet until he can feel Harry’s heat clash with his own between them; until he can erase that space, too, and get them lips to lips and mean it again, mean everything the way Harry seemingly always has done in a quiet, unassuming way, if his wistful expression now is anything to go by.

A moment later, Harry’s fisting Niall’s shirt, the loose fabric of it that hangs from his frame. He’s holding on tight, pressing his weight against Niall’s chest and pressing into the moment all at once, _kissing back_.

It feels like he means it, too, every trembling breath that lands over Niall’s upper lip. Every muffled sound that emits from him as he lets Niall lick into his mouth, before he’s suddenly turning his head to the side, out of the kiss, drawing that trembling air back into his lungs again in a noisy gulp. A crack in the previous silence, wakening the entire room from its spell.

“You,” he’s pressing out, shaking his head, clearing clouded eyes from undeniable attraction. “We’ve been drinking. You don’t know _what_ you mean.”

Niall moves his foot an inch forward, desperate. Says, “I do.”

It makes Harry close his eyes. His eyelids look heavy – weighed down by the battle between desire and rationality. Niall wants him to smile, to look up again, to see what Niall’s showing him, wearing so bravely on his sleeve and in the bow of that upper lip that Harry just abandoned. On a tongue that still tastes like beer and truth and the need to kiss Harry again.

Harry pushes him back, though, and slowly uncurls fingers from cotton. Shakes his head at all of his actions, all of his thoughts, before he turns the stove off and heads towards the hallway, towards a guest bedroom that Niall doesn’t want him to use.

“ _Harry_ ,” Niall pleads. He wants to say that he _does_ , again. Means it. Wants it. That he does it all, whatever Harry wants from him. Yes for eternity, because it’s always been true. Has been a vow embedded in particles so minuscule that they shouldn’t ever be able to hurt this much at the sight of Harry’s retreating form.

The man slows to a hesitant stop, glancing over his own shoulder with a wistful smile on inviting lips that simply move around the suggestion of, “Wait until you’ve sobered up, at least. Think about it. And if you still mean it then –“

“I will,” Niall says. Dares, thanks to that damned alcohol and his own, sober infatuation, to add on, “Always.”

“—then do it again,” Harry goes on. “Mean every part of it. And if you realize that you don’t, we’ll just forget about it. It’s not like it hasn’t happened before.”

It _hasn’t_ , is the thing. Niall’s kissed the others. Louis, Liam, Zayn, crew members and friends. Drunken shenanigans and the quickest of pecks, because once upon a time and on the brink of celebrity everything seemed so hilarious, so adventurous. But it _hasn’t_. Never Harry. It could never have been what it was with everyone else; could not have been left behind in the mist of alcohol and reckless, astounded amusement. Was always particles. Cells. Embedded in all of Niall, and all of it twists uncomfortably at the realization that Harry doesn’t _know_. That he thinks it would be just as irrelevant as the shit Niall’s done in the past.

He waits, though. Breaks apart bread and melted cheese with fingertips that are just as respectful of Harry as the rest of him is. Aware of the meaning of words, the underlying insecurity in what Harry asked of him. It’s not just Niall’s heart laid out between them, now. Has probably never been so, and that realization ripples in Niall’s blood. Becomes a tsunami of impatience and determination that makes him barge in through the open door to the guest room and simply glare at the form on the bed, the lack of armour on that body and the sensitive flesh that is bared.

Heart and flesh and skin, all of it put on the line. An unwashable one. Ink that will last forever.

“No,” he announces. “Fuck that, this is _me._ You _know_ me. You know that I’d never do this if I didn’t _mean_ it – that you mean too much to me for that – that I don’t – that love’s not something that I –“

“Love?”

“—love?” Niall repeats, finding his footing after the earthquake of emotion in Harry’s voice, in that single word, in that interruption of Niall’s own emotional eruption. “Yes, _love._ I love you.”

“Like… that?” Harry’s asking. Just above a whisper, just the flicker of hope in those green eyes where they’re reflecting dim lighting and the fire of Niall’s affection.

Niall exhales. Can see the flicker for the storm of emotion that it really is, can sink into the definite knowledge that Harry loves him back, and says, “Like that. Like this. All the ways, Harry, I _mean_ it.”


End file.
